


A Cat's Job Is Never Done

by morwen_of_gondor



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Archie is a golden retriever, Cats, Developing Friendships, Dogs, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Horatio is a cat, I mean he practically acts like one in canon if you think about it, I think Horatio's catness is enough to qualify for a 'crack' tag, Matchmaking, Romantic Fluff, by the cat, he's rude and makes strange noises and does not sleep at normal times, yes you heard that right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27852066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morwen_of_gondor/pseuds/morwen_of_gondor
Summary: Will Bush, recently retired from the Navy, acclimates to civilian life with occasional help from his neighbours and a very officious cat.
Relationships: Horatio Hornblower & Archie Kennedy, Horatio Hornblower & William Bush, William Bush/Barbara Wellesley
Comments: 41
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wishfulthinking1979](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wishfulthinking1979/gifts), [Joseph_B_Bergstrom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joseph_B_Bergstrom/gifts).



> This is completely random. It came into my head while I was shopping for groceries today and wouldn't leave. I am not responsible for its behaviour.
> 
> Gifted to my two "Hornblower" fandom encouragers. I hope you both enjoy the insanity.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William Bush acquires a cat. Well. Maybe it would be more accurate to put that the other way around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the reason why neither _The First Variation_ nor _The War of the Ring_ got an update today. Sorry about that. Please enjoy the crack by way of apology!

Will Bush set down his navy duffel bag, which made the last of his luggage, and took inventory of the sparse contents of his living room. He'd bought the bare minimum of furniture off the previous owner of the house, and the only thing that looked even remotely comfortable was an armchair that his sisters had insisted on getting for him as a housewarming present. The furniture he had bought amounted to a bed in the bedroom, a table in the kitchen with two strangely shaped chairs, and something which the previous owner had called an "entertainment centre," denuded of its television. Then there was the incongruously comfortable plush armchair in the living room, the refrigerator whose installation he had overseen earlier in the day, and the small but disproportionately heavy chest of drawers which he had helped the movers to painstakingly haul into the bedroom.

There was also a cat in the armchair. Will did not own a cat.

The cat looked at Will and Will looked at the cat. It was a lanky grey and white creature with markings that looked vaguely like a suit jacket, and was currently fixing him with an icy brown-eyed stare that reminded him of that passage in the Old Testament about one of the pagan Kings being "weighed in the balance and found wanting."

"Shoo," Will said tentatively.

The cat, if possible, looked even more unimpressed.

Will got slowly to his feet, not quite ready to trust his new prosthetic leg with his full weight suddenly, and reached for the cat to take it out of the chair. A moment later he was nursing a scratched hand and the cat was the very picture of offended dignity. "That is my chair," Will said sharply.

The cat remained unmoved, so Will swore under his breath, picked up the duffel, and set himself to dividing his scanty supply of civilian clothes between the chest of drawers and the closet. The cat could wait. Surely it would eventually get bored and leave.

The process of unpacking took longer than he expected, and after he finished that but before he had time to worry about the contents of the refrigerator, or lack thereof, the doorbell rang. He had expected, if he was honest, that it was either the movers come back for some reason or one of his sisters with one of the many pairs of his socks that had been engulfed by their laundry while he was staying with them. In fact, it was neither of those, but a woman whom he did not know, holding a plate of what looked like cookies. He was not used to strange cookie-bearing women appearing on his doorstep -- after fifteen years in the Navy he would have been less disconcerted by a bullet, in all honesty -- so he was grateful to her for starting the conversation with a cheery, "Hello! I'm Maria Mason."

"Will Bush."

"I'm your next neighbour but one on the west; I live with my mother. I heard you were moving in today and thought I'd come introduce myself."

"Pleasure to meet you."

She handed him the plate of cookies and then stood expectantly in the door. He supposed she wanted to be invited inside, so he did so, then excused himself to set the cookies on the kitchen table. When he returned, an apology on his lips for his absence, she was cooing at the cat, which was looking at her with supreme disdain. "I didn't know you had a cat!" she exclaimed as he came in. "He's beautiful!"

"Er, that's not my cat. I don't have a cat." 

"Well what on earth is he doing here?"

"I don't know. I found him in the armchair when I finished moving in. Be careful --" a stifled yelp indicated that Maria had found out the cat's aversion to being touched for herself -- "he scratches," he ended wryly.

Maria took her hand out of her mouth and set herself to wooing the cat's favour in a saccharine voice. "Surely such a pretty animal as you are has an owner somewhere. Now, kitty, have you got a collar?"

Several minutes later, during which time both Will and Maria had collected an assortment of further scratches, it was determined that the cat did not, in fact, have a collar, nor was there any other clue that might indicate whose it was originally. 

Maria left a few minutes later to look after her scratched hands, after giving Will a napkin with her phone number scribbled on it "in case he needed anything" and extending an offer for him to come over to tea.

His refrigerator was still empty, so he took a trip to the store, leaving the door into his backyard open in the hope that the cat problem would resolve itself. But, for reasons he could not have explained, he also picked up a tin of cat food.

It was just as well that he did, as the cat was still there, examining his egg-like kitchen chairs, when he returned.

A week later, Will had resigned himself to the fact that he had a cat now. Or perhaps the cat had him. Either way, the animal was there to stay. _Why_ it stayed, exactly, was a matter of debate. It scratched him when he tried to pet it, hissed at him when he tried to sit in his armchair, and left half-decayed animals on the doormat (then looked oddly hurt when he deposited them in the trash with a scowl). But it hissed more at Maria when she came over, as she periodically did, to "check on the neighbours," and insisted on petting the cat no matter how often it scratched her. And periodically Will would wake up in the morning to the noise of a muffled motorboat engine by his ear, and turn over to see the cat contentedly asleep on his pillow. Once, after a particularly bad dream, he woke to find a warm furry weight on his chest, reminding him that he was firmly on land and well away from petty pirates and their badly-secured lockers full of explosives. It was oddly comforting.

At the end of the week, he was standing by the stove flipping pancakes (it seemed an easy enough recipe) when a thought occurred to him. "You need a name," he said to the aloof furred presence that he knew well enough was in the room somewhere.

The cat made a sound that might have been assent. "I've never named an animal before," he went on; perhaps he sounded a bit mad, talking to the cat, but it wasn't like there was anyone else around to hear. "Could call you Stevens; he was a drill sergeant of mine who used to look at me like you do."

The cat made no sound. Will risked looking up from the pancakes, which were at least not smoking yet, and saw disdainful brown eyes under the table. "Not Stevens then. I don't suppose you have any ideas of your own."

There was an impatient meow. "I know, you can't talk or you'd tell me, and give me a piece of your mind to boot, no doubt."

More impatient meows. "You can't have the pancakes, if that's what you're after."

Stony silence.

"I could call you Tom. That's traditional for a cat, isn't it?"

The silence continued.

"Jack?" That was a forlorn hope but Will was not at all in his element at the moment. "Archie."

Claws sank into his leg. "Ow! Stop that, I've only got one left. If you've got to use me as a scratching post pick the other one."

Will recalled a distant cousin with an odd name. "Horatio?"

The claws retracted, and...was the cat actually purring and rubbing against his ankle? "Well. Horatio it is then."

The purring took on a decidedly smug note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Help, this is not what I normally write and I have no idea where it came from! The muse has taken over my brain! Send emergency tea! Or comments. Comments work too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara Leighton meets her new neighbour. And his cat. Not in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ninja muses dropped Horatio the cat on my head from the rafters today. Who was I to say no?

Over the next month or so, Will found himself settling into a new rhythm of life. Wake up, feed the newly-christened Horatio (and then under no circumstances disturb him for at least an hour), make breakfast, go to work, look at the latest company's command structure (which it was, regardless of what they called it) and tell them how they should overhaul it if they wanted to get any work done, come back home, feed Horatio, heat up something for supper, go to bed, repeat. It was, in its own way, as steady - and as boring - a routine as he had known on board his ship. Sometimes he varied it by meeting a coworker or, if any of them were in the area, a friend from the Navy, for supper. Very occasionally, one of his clients from another time zone had some sort of crisis and demanded his presence to fix it. 

He hadn't realised quite how bored he was, however, until he noticed a moving van driving down the street one Saturday morning and caught himself speculating about the possibility of new neighbours. There was a massive house across the street which he had learned from Maria was old, valuable, and for sale since nearly a year ago. Then he checked that train of thought at once. He was not going to be a nosy neighbour, and besides he had better things to pay attention to today: he had scheduled a visit to the vet for Horatio, and judging by the cat's attitude on nearly everything else in life, it was going to be a trial.

He was absolutely right.

Late that night, after Horatio's protests at the indignity of the vet had finally died out, Will was recalled to wakefulness by his phone ringing insistently. Still halfway asleep, he stumbled out of bed towards it, barely remembering in time that he wasn't wearing his prosthetic. He stabbed his finger at the glowing green button and rapped out the instinctive "Lieutenant Bush here."

The distinctly feminine voice on the other end of the line said, "Oh," and reminded him of the fact that he had not been on active duty for quite some time now.

"I'm terribly sorry if I woke you, Mr. Bush," said the voice, "but I think I have your cat."

Will knew for certain that Horatio had been in the house when he locked up. "What?" he asked, half-asleep brain still trying to process what was going on. "How?" 

"I really don't know," said the voice, "and I'm terribly sorry for waking you at this hour."

Will looked at the clock. It was nearly one in the morning. The woman he was speaking to either kept strange hours or had been woken by the infernal cat. The knowledge that there was a lady on the phone managed, barely, to restrain him from fervently damning the animal. "I'll come and get him," he said, resigning himself to four hours of sleep. "Where are you?"

The voice gave him the address of the mansion, before signing off in a voice that was far too cheerful for this time of night. "Damn that cat!" Will roared in the voice that had once sent careless seamen scurrying in terror. 

There was no-one around to hear him, unless he managed to wake the neighbours, but he did feel marginally better. Grumbling under his breath, he groped for his prosthetic, then went in search of the nearest pair of shoes.

Barely ten minutes later, he was ringing the doorbell of the mansion. 

Barbara Leighton opened the door and took stock of the mysterious cat-owner whom she had evidently woken with her call. He was a bit above medium height, wearing what looked like fatigue pants and a t-shirt, with dark, curling hair that was sticking up on one side, and incongruously alert and piercing blue eyes. He introduced himself as Will Bush and shook her hand firmly, apologising profusely for his cat. 

"It's really no trouble," she said. "I was already awake; I just moved in today and I'm still looking through the boxes for the things I need. It just so happened that one of the things that came in with the boxes was a cat."

"I hope he hasn't scratched you too badly."

"Not at all. He's quite a sweet animal, though I'm afraid I did have to take a rather firm tone to get him out of my chair. It was quite easy getting your number off his tags."

Will stared at her in disbelief. "That cat scratches everyone," he said. "He must really like you."

"Even you?"

"Especially me. I'm still not sure why he sticks around."

"I thought he was your cat."

"He did to me exactly what he did to you: turned up in my house just after I moved in, took over my best armchair, and has refused to leave ever since. He didn't have a collar, so I kept him until I could take him to the vet and see if he was chipped. I did that today, and he's not, so I suppose that does make him my cat. Honestly, though, sometimes I feel more like I'm his human."

"Cats are like that sometimes," Barbara agreed, indicating the room where she had left Horatio. "Oh," she added when they came up to it. "I left that door closed."

"I think he's figured out doorknobs now," Will said, putting his head into the room and verifying that it was entirely catless. "He's a remarkably intelligent animal and I have yet to find a way of keeping him somewhere he didn't want to be. I've tried three cat carriers and he's sprung the locks on all of them."

"Have you considered calling him Houdini?" Barbara asked, amused, as they began to walk through the house, keeping a keen eye out for the cat. Fortunately much of the house was still empty, and so the search went more quickly than it might have done.

"I tried once and he ran his claws into my leg. He hates it if you call him anything but Horatio."

"How on earth did you pick that name for a cat?"

Will turned to her with a grin that made his serious face look rather boyish. "Suggested names until he stopped scratching me."

"You talk about that cat like he understands what you say."

"I think he does," Will said wryly. "Not that that stops him ignoring me most of the time."

There was a hastily stifled scrabbling noise from inside the next room they checked, which was nearly full of boxes. "He would be in here," Will sighed. Then he addressed the room. "Horatio, would it be too much to ask that you do things the easy way for once in your life and come out?"

The cat made a sound that might have been amusement. Will turned to her and asked, smiling, "Would you rather beat the brush or wait by the choke point?"

She parsed the military jargon and said, "I think I'll take the choke point, if you don't mind. Your cat seems less prone to scratch me than you, so maybe it will be easier if I'm the one to catch him."

Will threw her a casual salute and waded into the sea of boxes, giving Barbara the privacy to think about how very odd it was to be chasing a stranger's cat through her new house at 1:30 in the morning. There was a muffled _thump_ from inside the room, the sort of noise that might be made by a man tripping over a box, followed by a yowl and then a very human yelp. Shortly afterwards, a grey and white blur shot out of the room. Barbara neatly blocked it with her feet and seized on the startled cat, which gave her a betrayed look from large brown eyes (rare for cats, and with a rather human cast to them). The cat was shortly followed by Will, nursing a scratched hand. He looked at the cat sitting quietly in her arms despite its look of annoyance, and shook his head. "I don't know how you do that," he said. "But Horatio and I have kept you up far too long as it is. Come on, you infernal nuisance. Time to stop bothering the neighbours."

There had been no noticeable change in Will's voice as he addressed the cat, but Barbara suddenly found her arms full of fluffed fur and yowling outrage. "I take that back," she said. "He does understand you."

"Yes," said Will, making a dive for the cat just as the animal leapt right out of her hands, "he does."

Clearly this drama was familiar to both participants. There was a brief scuffle, but Will emerged victorious, holding the protesting cat gently but firmly. 

"Haven't you got a carrier?" Barbara asked.

"Still haven't found a new one after he figured out the latch on the last one on the way to the vet's," Will answered, a little shortly because he was still struggling to control the wriggling cat. "This is easier, believe it or not."

"Well at least let me get the door for you."

"Thank you...no, Horatio!" The cat had made one last desperate bid for freedom and very nearly succeeded.

"I am sorry I brought you out at this hour," Barbara said once more as she opened the door.

Will shrugged as well as he could with his arms full of cat. "I'd rather get him back to my place quickly," he replied. "Otherwise he'd get it through his head that he could go wherever he wanted and there'd be no stopping him.Thank you for your help, and I really am sorry about this whole mess."

"It was no trouble," said Barbara, and then he was out the door and setting off down her sidewalk at a brisk pace, probably eager to get back to his house before Horatio escaped again. She shook her head in amusement. Whatever she had expected from her new neighbours, it hadn't been this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed the cat!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horatio-the-cat continues to be incorrigible. Will is embarrassed. Barbara is amused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am, back again with more Hornblower cat AU. This is tied with _The General and the Grand Admiral_ for the weirdest thing I've ever written, but, like TG&TGA, it's kind of fun, so here you go.

Keeping firm hold of his squirming cat with his left hand, Will carefully maneuvered his door open with his right, and closed it behind him before he loosened his grip. Horatio climbed down his leg with more than the necessary amount of scratching rather than simply jump down when released, and then turned his back on Will in a very marked manner. "Oh, yes," Will snapped, running a hand through his hair and realising that it was sticking up in all directions, "you're offended. Well look at me! You've successfully made me look ridiculous in front of not only the people who actually want to see me, but the ones who don't too. And it's nearly two in the morning because you had to go and hide in a mansion the size of an aircraft carrier. You do not get to be rude over this. Now I'm going back to bed. Stay in the house, damn it."

Horatio did not condescend to turn around, but one ear twitched. Will took that as proof he had been heard, and went back to his room to try and get what sleep he could before his alarm went off at 5.

He might have been heard, but he was not heeded. His routine was, over the course of the next week, utterly upended by calls, or occasionally texts, at all hours of the day and night, always from the same number (he finally gave up and put it in his contacts), and always with a variant on the same message: "Mr. Bush, I'm sorry about this, but I'm afraid I have your cat." Mrs. Leighton was unfailingly polite about the mole head that appeared on her breakfast table one morning, and the cat refusing to come down from the top of her curtains, and the cat hiding behind her couch, and the cat finding an open tin of anchovies in her kitchen and eating all of them, and she never showed any irritation at having Will invade her house at all hours to remove the damnable animal, but that did not make him feel any less ridiculous about it all; in fact it almost made it worse.

"Are you trying to make me a laughingstock?" he asked with his face in his hands, sitting in his car outside his house, as Horatio, still wearing the harness which to date was the best way to keep him restrained, sat in injured dignity on the passenger side. "Is it your idea of fun to make my first real conversation with a woman since I went to sea -- and then the next eighteen after that -- 'Oh dear, I can't keep my cat in the house, I'm so sorry, I hope he hasn't broken anything this time?' "

Horatio made an offended noise.

"Oh, sure, _you're_ unhappy about this? _Stay in the damn house and it will stop._ Or is that just too hard? Honestly, maybe I should just let you stay if Mrs. Leighton doesn't mind. Oh, wait, you left a dead mole in her kitchen last week, somehow I don't think she'll want you around on a permanent basis."

This time the cat sounded hurt. 

"Honestly, it's bad enough that you make me clean up your half-rotten finds at ungodly hours of the night, but do you have to do it to a lady as well?"

Hurt and offended.

"I'm going to get scratched if I don't shut up, aren't I?"

Snippy affirmative. 

_Dear God, am I going mad or does that cat actually talk sometimes?_ Will thought helplessly. "Fine. Shutting up. I honestly don't know why I try."

A lapful of purring cat.

 _What the hell?_ he thought, scratching the cat's ears to its evident approval. _Oh well, at least maybe he'll go inside the house without trying to kill me now._

Miraculously, for once, Horatio did.

Barbara's new neighbours -- really neighbour in the singular but she couldn't quite help counting Horatio as a personality in his own right -- became an unpredictable but rather welcome presence in her life over the first few weeks in her new house. She had never owned a dog or a cat, and had to admit that coming into the house and having Horatio wind himself around her ankles and purr by way of greeting was quite a nice feeling, even though it brought with it the guilt of having to call up poor Will Bush to retrieve his errant charge. The man looked increasingly mortified with every new call, and though she tried to reassure him that she really didn't mind, it didn't seem to help. She supposed that she would be equally embarrassed in his place. She had briefly considered that he might be neglecting Horatio, from how often the cat showed up and how easily he seemed to get out of Will's house, but Will always came promptly when she called, and the cat always looked well-fed, and besides that she had no more idea of how Horatio got into her house than Will had of how he got out, and it would be unfair to blame the man for being unable to do something she couldn't even begin to figure out herself.

About a month after she had first moved in, after Will (three weeks of twice-weekly cat retrieval calls had sufficed to put them on a first-name basis) had gone through the customary struggle of getting Horatio into his harness and was about to leave, he paused before saying goodbye and turned towards her with a thoughtful expression on his face. "I don't know quite how to say this," he said slowly, "but have you ever thought about keeping a cat?"

That was not the way she had expected that sentence to end, and she was tempted to laugh, but Will was evidently serious. "I didn't before," she said, repressing her smile, "but now I'm beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be nice."

"I asked because -- I'm not trying to fob my cat off on you -- but I really think he likes you better than me, and, well, it seems you will be plagued by my cat regardless of what I do, but you need not be plagued by me too."

"Will, you're not a plague, and neither is Horatio," was the first thing that came to mind.

"Debatable," Will said with a grin.

Barbara fought down the temptation to roll her eyes. "And I don't want to steal your cat."

"I think the cat has stolen himself, really."

That was, at face value, such a ridiculous sentence that she had to laugh at how seriously it was meant and how well it summed up the situation. "Well. I have no objection to keeping Horatio for a while," she said. "I won't be sorry about not having to wake you up at all hours anymore, but I wouldn't mind seeing you at more normal times."

"I...wouldn't mind either. Um…" 

Barbara took pity on him. "Coffee? Thursday? I can tell you what havoc Horatio has wreaked on my house."

"Sure," Will said, evidently relieved. "Though hopefully there won't be too much of that."

And with that he was out of the door. Barbara shook her head. Three weeks had passed since he first showed up on her doorstep, and she still hadn't made any progress in understanding the man.

On Wednesday, Barbara's phone rang at 5:30 AM. Picking it up blearily, she heard a very familiar voice say, "Barbara? I'm very sorry, but I think I have your cat."

Barbara couldn't help it. She burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed the ~~cat~~ muse!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is excitement at Will's company's gala. For once, it's not Horatio's fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be an AU, but it's a Hornblower AU. We had to have a bit of action at some point.

Will scanned the room from his spot in the corner, and once again failed to see either anything threatening or anyone remotely interesting, other than his neighbour Barbara, whom he had no attention of approaching here. He was a mid-level consultant, and good at his job — good enough to get an invitation to the company gala by way of thanks for his work — but she clearly moved in higher circles than he would ever have guessed. At the moment she was delicately and skilfully managing no less than two CEOs and one CFO in a way which was truly a pleasure to watch. There was no way he would be at home in a conversation like that, however, even though she would doubtless be the soul of politeness, so he stayed in his corner, nursed his glass of wine, and watched the room. He had said hello to the few people he knew already and made desultory conversation with each of them for a few minutes. Then, his social duties done, he had retired quietly to the outskirts of the room and entertained himself as best he could.

As a result, he was the first — and, he hoped, the only — person in the room to notice that there was at least one uninvited guest present, hiding under the buffet tables and making the occasional foray out to pick up dropped hors d'oeuvres. He and Barbara had officially given up on controlling Horatio, and so while the cat still officially belonged to him, effectively he lived in both their houses and went back and forth as he pleased. The primary result of this arrangement was that Will was no longer awoken at strange hours to retrieve his furious cat, so he wasn't about to protest. However, the last Will had heard, Horatio was still in Barbara's house, and that was obviously no longer the case. He was debating the pros and cons of making a discreet dive for the cat and then trying to leave without getting the attention of the entire room, when something about the section of the room he had been staring pensively towards registered in his mind as "off".

The cat problem forgotten, he looked more closely, and the something off resolved itself into a person. The expensive suit, large and shining wristwatch, and (to Will's mind) tasteless and gaudy tie marked him as almost certainly a client representative, but he was not moving the way that men like that usually moved, as though he owned half the room and could buy the other half if he felt like it. He was almost...sneaking, throwing nervous glances over his shoulder every so often as though he expected to be followed. Will looked away before his steady gaze could be noticed, and his eyes lighted on Horatio, who was staring fixedly at the CEO on Barbara's right with an expression he usually reserved for birds and rabbits. He tore his eyes away from that potential drama, however, when the door that led to the kitchens swung open and shut. When he looked again the nervous man was no longer visible. Casually, doing his best to look as though he were simply wandering aimlessly around the edges of the room, Will moved towards the doors. It was probably nothing, but it might be something. It could do no harm to keep an eye on that half of the room.

Barbara carefully controlled the treacherous twitch at the corner of her mouth as she watched Horatio stalking her more boring (and persistent) conversation partner's trouser leg out of the corner of her eye. She had become aware, at some point in the evening, of something darting in and out from under the tables, and eventually, catching the blur at the right moment, had realised that it was her cat. Well, the cat she shared with Will. After that it had been a constant struggle not to look down whenever she noticed him slip out from under the tables on a quest for food. She made the appropriate reply to this latest congratulatory speech on the skills she had shown in organising the company gala, and resolutely did not look at the cat. She could not entirely restrain her smile, however, when the speaker trailed off into a yelp halfway through and jumped slightly into the air. By the time he had his feet on the ground once more and was looking around for the cause of the sharp pain in his calf, Horatio had disappeared back under the tables, and she mentally shook her head in mild admiration at the cat's ingenuity.

By the time Will was back in sight of the door to the back hallway, he could no longer be entirely sure whether his quarry was still in the back of the venue or had reemerged into the crowd. Still doing his best to look like a mere aimless wanderer, he scanned the room slowly. Then he caught a glint of bright metal out of the corner of his eye, and someone screamed.

Barbara spun around at the high-pitched shriek of a woman frightened nearly into hysterics, and what she saw next burned itself into her mind with all the persistence of the terrifyingly unexpected. One of the guests — a man she had spoken to briefly earlier and noted as looking oddly nervous — was standing in front of a terrified couple brandishing a butcher knife the length of his forearm. The woman was still screaming, a drawn-out, piercing sound; her husband had flung an arm in front of her by reflex as he recoiled from the knife. Everything seemed to have slowed down tremendously, so Barbara had time to notice that the knife's brightly polished blade reflected the light nearly as well as a mirror.

She also had time to see almost exactly what happened as a vaguely familiar figure in a navy blue suit detached itself from the walls, and, with quick, almost casual motions, seized the nervous man's wrist with his left hand and twisted it backwards at an angle that looked extremely painful. A moment later the knife clattered to the floor, and time resumed its normal speed as the blue-suited man's right fist connected solidly with the would-be murderer's jaw. At least that was what Barbara supposed the man had been trying to do. The only thing he was doing now was being unconscious on the floor, and a wave of relief flowed through the room. 

The frightened woman finally stopped screaming, and slowly all eyes turned towards the man in the blue suit, whom Barbara recognised, with a shock, as Will Bush the cat man, who had just let go of the unconscious man's arm. It fell to the floor with a thud that seemed very loud in the sudden silence, and Will looked around with a vaguely uncomfortable expression at all the people who were now staring at him. An irrelevant part of Barbara's mind informed her that the suit brought out the blue of his eyes rather nicely. She ignored it.

This state of affairs might have gone on for any amount of time, but several of the security guards who had been at the door came running up. They momentarily joined the crowd of gawkers, and then advanced purposefully towards the two men who were now in the centre of a half-circle of clear space, still the object of all eyes. Barbara suddenly came to the realisation that the current situation was susceptible of more than one interpretation and hurried forward to intercept them. One was already reaching for Will's arm by the time she was close enough to talk to them without shouting. "Wait," she said, in the firm voice that she used for panicky or prickly clients.

She was pleased to see that that voice worked on security as well as clients: all of them turned towards her instinctively. "That man," she said, indicating the one on the floor, who was beginning his slow and painful return to consciousness, "had a knife and was threatening a couple with it."

She pointed to the knife lying behind him for emphasis. "This is my neighbour Will," she said, turning towards him, "and he stopped him before anything could happen."

The woman who had screamed nodded furiously. "That's right," she said. "I thought we were done for, I really did. He just came out of nowhere, and...wham! The knife was on the floor and then so was he. The man with the knife, I mean."

The security guard who had frozen with his hand inches away from Will's arm withdrew it guiltily. "Sorry, sir," he said. "Ma'am. You know how things can look if you don't know what happened."

Barbara gave the man her best imperious face and he quailed, and then joined his comrades in roughly hauling the man with the knife to his feet and half-dragging him out of the room. Barbara was not sufficiently concerned to follow their progress further now that there was no longer a threat.

At this point, it made it through the collective heads of everyone in the room that there had been an attempted...something...and that it had been stopped, and everyone suddenly began talking at the same time. Will was still standing where he had stopped after knocking out the miscreant, still wearing the faintly awkward look. Barbara decided that she had mingled sufficiently with company executives and was allowed to have a conversation with someone she liked, and came to his rescue. "Management consulting must be a more exciting job than I thought," she said with a smile.

Will's eyes came back from the distance to focus on her, and she realised that he must have been looking to see if the man with the knife had had any friends. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, and then his brain evidently caught up with what she had said. "Oh, that. I was in the Navy for fifteen years."

"'Oh, that,' he says, after knocking out a man with a knife before security even noticed there was a problem." Barbara shook her head. "You're not secretly some kind of, I don't know, CIA black ops?"

"If I were," he retorted with a grin, attention fully on the conversation now, "would I tell you?"

"Well, we do share a cat."

He snorted, and the two of them began by an unspoken agreement to drift away from the kitchen doors. Something in the way he moved caught Barbara's attention. "Are you all right?" she asked. "He didn't...get you, did he?"

Will looked down as though the floor had suddenly become fascinating. "No," he said. 

"But you're limping."

"That's an old injury," he said, still looking at the floor, with his face set in an expression she couldn't quite read. "Souvenir of a little skirmish with some pirates off the Somali coast who had no idea how to secure explosives on board ship." He shrugged, and looked up to meet her eyes again. "Some damn fool — sorry, ma'am. Some idiot got at the locker — I still don't know what he was trying to do, other than blow us up — and sent half the ship up, and himself with it."

He looked past her towards one of the windows. "What happened?" she asked, a little surprised at finding out that there was so much she didn't know about him.

"I felt something was off about half a second before the explosion and tried to get my men down. Tackled the nearest one, Matthews, behind the nearest cover myself, or tried to, and it must have worked because he was all right. After that the next thing I remember is being in medical on board the _Indefatigable,_ and finding myself short a leg." He smiled faintly at the pun.

"I had no idea," Barbara said, still a little shocked — not only was this the most he had told her about himself of his own accord, it was simply not something she had ever expected to hear of him, certainly not in such a matter-of-fact tone, as though losing a leg in a fight with pirates was just the sort of thing that happened to people sometimes.

His gaze came back to her again. "Surgeon did a good job fixing me up," he said simply. 

"And then?" 

"Got lifted to a hospital ashore, got the new leg fitted, got an honourable discharge, moved into a new house, and found a cat sitting in my armchair," he said, still in the matter-of-fact voice. "And met my neighbours." 

He smiled after the last sentence, and she felt oddly touched. To the best of her knowledge he didn't seek out many people for company, and though he hadn't exactly sought her out at first, he seemed to be doing so now. He had in fact gone so far as to volunteer information about himself, which he rarely did beyond providing small-talk fodder like brief anecdotes about his work or his sisters.

They had kept walking as they talked, and now they were by the exit. Will stopped suddenly and turned towards her. "I don't know if you noticed," he said, "but…"

"Horatio?" 

"Yes."

"Stealing from the buffet?"

"And stalking whoever that was that wouldn't stop talking to you."

"Scratching, actually. We should probably find him. Horatio, that is."

With an oddly elegant little half-bow, Will turned and offered her his arm ceremoniously. "Shall we?"

"Onward to find the wayward cat," she said, taking his arm.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Archie, the golden retriever puppy. Will has resigned himself to the insanity at this point.

The universe had a very strange sense of humour, and it was out to make fun of him, Will decided, listening as his former Captain, Pellew, (who was trying very hard and so far unsuccessfully to get Will to call him by his first name now that he was retired) asked him if he would mind looking after a dog for the weekend, since he seemed to be collecting animals now. He buried his head in his hands and listened to Pellew's unsympathetic amusement. 

"Are you saying yes or no?" Pellew asked when he took his face out of his hands again.

Will shrugged. "Oh, what the hell. The damn cat thinks I need more friends anyway."

Pellew snorted. "And your cat runs your social life, does he?"

"More of it than I'd like. Sometimes I'd swear he's trying to set me up with one of my neighbours."

"Well, perhaps he'll stop if you show some signs of having one on your own."

"Not likely. But sure, I'll look after your dog for the weekend. Where are you off to?"

"Holiday in Devon with Susan. I've been in the city too long."

"And away from the sea," Will added knowingly.

"Yes, that as well. Sometimes I wish I'd never been promoted, if it had to mean duty ashore. You seem to be content enough on land, now, though."

Will paused to consider. "Do you know, I honestly hadn't thought about it. I suppose I was looking at this as a sort of tour of duty. The thought of a holiday hadn't crossed my mind at all."

"No wonder I hear remarkable things of your career. You know, most companies do give their employees paid leave."

Will shook his head with a sigh. "Yes, I know. But, in all honesty, I don't think I'd know what to do with myself if I did take a week's leave."

Pellew raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "You should take one and find out. I'd best be off now; holiday doesn't start until Friday and duty calls. Good afternoon!"

Next Friday, Pellew appeared in the evening and deposited a gangling golden retriever puppy in Will's entryway, informed him that its name was Archie, and disappeared again promptly, as he had a train to catch. With a distinct feeling of deja vu, Will met the dog's eyes as he stood by the door. It wagged its tail cheerfully, jumped up on his good leg, and tried to lick his hand. The sense of deja vu promptly evaporated as he scratched its ears. "So," he said, "you're Archie."

The dog barked happily.

"Well, you know your name anyway. Horatio's around here somewhere. He's my cat. Do not bother him; he won't take it well. There's a cat door into the backyard; you'll probably fit through it. And here I am, talking to you like you understand just like I do with the cat. Just try to stay out of trouble."

Archie gave him a deceptively innocent and slightly plaintive look. William noticed that he had blue eyes. "On your head be it if you bother Horatio," he said, and went on with his evening routine.

Followed by Archie, who took great interest in everything he did. Especially when the cat food came out. "No," Will said very firmly. "You have your own food. It's here."

Blue eyes stared at him reproachfully and Will sighed. "I'm not the one who's going to be enforcing that. I told you, on your head be it if you bother the cat."

Horatio chose to make his appearance at this juncture, and looked skeptically at Will for some time before deciding to ignore both him and Archie in favour of making a beeline for the bowl of cat food. Archie bounded over on an intercept course and Will braced himself to separate the two animals if it became necessary.

Horatio deigned to notice Archie and hissed furiously. The dog showed his first glimmer of survival instincts by immediately backing up. Or trying to. Unfortunately for him he had built up a good amount of momentum and Will's kitchen floor was tiled. Archie skidded squarely into Horatio and the two of them wound up in a heap of tangled legs and tails on the floor. The noise Horatio made sounded uncannily like someone asking _"Why?"_ but at least it was not the outraged yowl which usually portended scratched hands for someone (and by someone Will meant himself).

Will lifted Archie out of the dog-and-cat pile by the scruff of his neck and set him back on his feet. "No," he said firmly. "That is bothering the cat. Do not bother the cat."

Horatio picked himself up, pretending nothing had happened, and resumed his stalk towards his bowl.

Archie looked sadly at Will but caused no further trouble for the rest of the evening, and Will breathed a sigh of relief. He had been afraid that it would take something more drastic for the dog to learn his lesson, and he had not been looking forward to breaking up a fight, or to explaining to Pellew why his dog had been attacked. Now if only the rest of the weekend went this well.

Saturday was a pleasant day, and as the backyard fence was probably in better repair than it had ever been owing to Will's ineffectual attempts to keep Horatio in his house, he let the dog outside to keep him out of the way as he set to work cooking a week's worth of food. Horatio, as usual, came and went in the background, but Will was trying a new pasta recipe and paid him only the slightest of attention. 

Archie looked around at the outside with the fence. Why humans always put fences around outside was beyond him, but at least it was a large outside-fence-place, and the not-master who smelled like metal and plastic as well as human seemed to be a nice sort of human, if rather strict. The Horatio-cat was not terribly nice but Archie had run into him rather hard, even though he had not meant to. He would try to make friends again today in outside, where the ground was not slippery.

Eventually the cat came outside through the little door in the door. Archie had tried to go through it once but had gotten stuck and the strange smelling not-master human had had to pull him out, and so he was leaving it alone. Archie walked slowly over to the cat called Horatio, only tripping over his feet once on the way, and barked a cheerful hello.

Horatio put his ears back but did not hiss. Archie counted this as progress and sat down with a huff to make it clear that he was not going to run into him again. Horatio stared at him for a while, and then walked the other way. Archie supposed that this meant he was allowed to do what he liked in the outside. After all this was Horatio and the strange-smelling human's outside, not Archie's. Archie set himself to explore. There were a great many new smells here which demanded investigation. He would leave the cat alone for a little before he tried to be friends again.

The sounds of barking recalled Will's attention from the pasta to his menagerie, and he hurried to the door for fear that Archie had repeated his previous night's mistake and angered Horatio. What he saw, he was in no way prepared for. Archie was bouncing up and down cheerfully, making up for his lack of control over his own paws with enthusiasm. As Will watched, Horatio's paw shot out...to bop the dog on the nose. Playfully. Archie continued barking happily as Horatio batted at his paws, claws obviously sheathed. Will shook his head in bewilderment and turned back to the pasta. Far be it from him to complain about Horatio playing nicely with anyone, be that literally or metaphorically.

Over the rest of the weekend, Horatio and Archie continued to defy Will's expectations. Putting Archie in his crate became a fruitless endeavour, because Horatio would invariably let him out again, or let himself in. The two of them played together, left each other's food alone, and slept together. Rather to Will's surprise this led to Horatio being less prickly towards him for some unfathomable reason, but he was, again, not going to complain about it.

When Pellew came back Monday morning to retrieve his dog, Horatio put himself between Pellew and Archie, and hissed warningly. Pellew was a wise man and did not come in scratching range. Instead he stepped back and said, "I see why you're so careful not to offend him. Mind telling him that I'd like my dog back?"

Will stepped forward and to the side. Horatio made a swipe at his leg, but must have been rather off his game, as he got the prosthetic and Will managed to scoop Archie up before there was any further trouble. As soon as he did so, however, Archie began whining. Will danced out of the way of Horatio's attempts to climb his leg and made it back to Pellew in the entryway, while Horatio, his first and second plans thwarted, put up a dismal wailing in the background and Will rolled his eyes.

Pellew had been watching the drama with a thoughtful look on his face, and a strange clairvoyance came to Will as he met his old captain's eyes. He knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened. "You know," Pellew said, "I've been looking for someone to take Archie off my hands for a few weeks now. He's a little too much puppy for my wife and me at the moment; she doesn't like filling in holes in the garden and I don't have the time to train him. And he seems to have gotten rather attached to you. Or your cat. Or both. What would you say to keeping him?"

It was by a great effort of will that Will did not burst into laughter. "He has rather grown on me," he said, and Archie writhed round in his arms to lick him full on the face.

"I think that plan meets with Archie's seal of approval," Pellew said, amused. 

"Horatio's too, since he's stopped that awful racket," Will added.

"And yours?"

"At this point...why not?"

Pellew laughed. "Then I shall bid you goodnight. And your menagerie."

When Will told Barbara about the newest addition to his household over coffee the next week, it was nearly five minutes before she stopped laughing. Will didn't mind, though. He rather liked Barbara's laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Pellew appears for a cameo!
> 
> As always, comments feed the muse. And if you want to see more Hornblower-related comment, pop on over to my Tumblr at [WinterInHimring](https://winterinhimring.tumblr.com/) and say hi!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Barbara go on a date. It's just as strangely adorable as it sounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you doubtless remember when I swore up and down that I didn't write romance, nope, didn't touch it with a ten-foot pole and never would.
> 
> Well, it seems that I lied. Romantic fluff in spades lies ahead. Horatio the cat is purring smugly at me from his spot on my keyboard. Help.

Barbara watched Will over the edge of her coffee mug. He was staring into the distance with a furrow between his brows, coffee evidently forgotten, for the third time in ten minutes, and she was beginning to wonder if something was wrong.

"Will?" she asked, putting her hand on his arm. 

He started and she withdrew her hand. He transferred the worried look from the corner of the room to her face and asked, "Barbara, would you like to go to dinner Friday night? With me?"

"Of course," she said, almost by reflex, and then a whole list of odd little behaviours she had noticed about her neighbour fell into place one by one in her mind, and she understood.

"Of course I would," she repeated in a softer voice, putting her hand back on his arm and squeezing briefly before drawing back again. "Where do you want to go?"

"I was thinking of Quo Vadis?" he said, the question obvious in his voice.

"That would be lovely," she said gently. "Shall I meet you there at half-past eight?"

He gave her a look that was equal parts relieved and surprised. _Oh, Will._ "I...didn't think you'd want to," he finally confessed.

She smiled at him. "I was hoping you would ask, actually."

He looked thoroughly pleased at this but obviously had no idea what to say, so she took pity on him and turned the conversation back into its more customary channels about dogs and cats.

He was standing at parade rest outside the restaurant when her taxi pulled up, wearing the neat blue suit that she had last seen at the very memorable gala.

He offered her his arm with a faintly self-conscious look and an air of old-fashioned chivalry that delighted her, handed her into her chair, and waited until she was seated before sitting down himself. 

He glanced quickly around the room before looking at her, cataloguing people and exits. She was familiar with that gesture, but this time it seemed to hold a touch more panic than was usual with him. They had already exchanged their stories for the week about Horatio and Archie (who followed his feline friend everywhere, including into Barbara's house), and so the conversation was rather slow and mostly dwelt on the menu and, when it arrived, the virtues of dinner. Barbara was a past mistress of desultory conversation and slowly Will seemed to lose some of his nerves, but just as in the coffee shop, something was obviously bothering him, though he was trying valiantly to hide it. Finally, when it became apparent that he would seize any pretext to dance around whatever he had to say, she let the conversation lapse, and watched as the familiar frown appeared on his forehead as they waited for pudding. 

In the end he faced her, squaring his shoulders, and said slowly, as though he were choosing each word carefully, "Barbara...I am a direct man, and I don't know of any other way to say this, but why did you agree to come? Don't mistake me, I'm delighted — more than delighted, but I'm not the sort...well, I'm only me," he finished with a self-deprecating shrug. "I'm your peg-legged neighbour who can't control his cat. You could do better."

 _Oh, Will,_ she thought, for the second time that week. "I think before I answer that, I should tell you a story," she said.

Will looked a little confused but immediately gave her his full attention. "There was a young woman once," she said, "who set her duty to her family above all else. Sometimes even above her own judgement. In most other things she had no trouble making her wishes known, so when her parents recommended a husband to her they did not expect her to take their word as law, but she did. She found herself married to a man almost ten years her senior. He was kind enough in his own way, but in the end, he was neither the most intelligent nor the most considerate of men. She was a dutiful wife, and, I daresay, a good one, but she never loved him, and I do not think he ever realised it, and that perhaps made things worse."

She paused and saw that Will seemed to have forgotten his earlier awkwardness as he listened. "When they had been married for eight years, there was an accident with a taxi. She was only bruised, but he...he took the worst of it. He never recovered consciousness. The doctors assured me that he did not suffer. And I found myself twenty-eight years old, with my position in life and society assured, my husband dead, perfectly free to do whatever I liked with myself — and quite lonely, as I had been for some time, though I had not known it at first. But I knew my own mind by then, and I made it up that if I ever thought about marrying again, it would be to a man who respected me and not just my station, and who listened to what I had to say. Someone thoughtful, and rather quiet, and patient, and not too fond of talking about how perfect he was. I did not make "handsome" a necessary part of that list, though I thought it would be pleasant to have a handsome husband. And until recently, I did not particularly expect to ever meet such a man."

"But you have met him," Will said, still slowly, sounding...sad, and rather hurt.

She looked him in the eye and understood what was wrong. "Yes," she said, smiling.

"Where?" he asked, making a very valiant effort to smile that made her heart go out to him.

She reached one hand over the table towards him, and watched as understanding dawned on his face. It was rare for him to be wholly unguarded, even with her, and so she took a certain satisfaction in being the reason for that wide, soft, awed smile. He took her hand carefully, as though it were something that might disappear if he were too rough with it, and kissed it. Then he went very red in the face and stammered out something that she couldn't even try to interpret, though he did not let go of her hand. She waited patiently until he could speak again, and did not draw her hand back. "Mrs. Leighton," he managed eventually, "walk with me?"

"Mr. Bush," she said, letting a teasing note slip into her voice, "I should be delighted. But I think you should call me Barbara."

This time, when he offered her his arm, she put her arm right through his, so that their shoulders touched as they walked out into the cool evening. He wound his fingers carefully through hers, and gave up on fighting the grin that wanted to take over his face. He was happy, and he couldn't have cared less who knew about it.

Then a thought came to him that dimmed the smile a little. "You know," he said softly, looking down at the pavement in front of them, "the man in your list is a bit of a mess too. Short one leg. Has nightmares on occasion. Keeps a cat that thinks it owns the neighbourhood."

She pressed his hand gently when he mentioned the nightmares, and he remembered that he hadn't told her about those before. Ordinarily he would never have mentioned them to anyone, but talking to Barbara seemed natural in a way that conversation almost never was for him. Not this kind of conversation, anyway.

"I don't mind," she said, and smiled at him, and he realised that their faces were very close together. "The list isn't much by way of company of an evening, and it would be a very boring man who was nothing but the things I had on my list."

Then she turned towards him, and paused suddenly, and blushed. "Will…" she said, in a voice only just above a whisper. 

Daring greatly, he stopped so that he could face her fully, and raised his free hand to touch her face. 

He smiled at her, and Barbara found it difficult to think of anything but how very, very blue his eyes really were. His hand was warm and rough against her cheek as he leaned in towards her, and asked a little hoarsely, "May I?"

She managed something affirmative, and then for a little while they both forgot the world. 

When they parted she knew she was wearing a foolish grin, and she didn't care, because he looked just as happy. He cleared his throat before managing speech, and then asked, "May I escort you home, ma'am?"

"Why yes sir," she found herself saying in answer, "You may."

He put one arm around her shoulders, and waved for a taxi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. I wrote a romantic thing. With much prodding *ahem* encouragement from Wishfulthinking1979, and many pleading looks from Will. Comments will either make me feel less awkward about it or much, much more awkward. Fire ahead either way and tell me what you thought!
> 
> Also, there's not much of a story left, but there's still an epilogue planned, so stay tuned.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara insists that her husband have more than a week's worth of shirts. Horatio and Archie join forces to back her up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue is here, and probably the fluffiest thing I've ever written. Be warned.

#### Six Months Later

"Dearest," came Barbara's voice from their room.

Will didn't think he would ever tire of hearing her call him that, or of looking down at his hand and seeing the dull gold band that marked him as a married man. Sometimes he needed the reminder that it hadn't all been a dream. Then he heard the rest of her sentence and furrowed his brow in confusion. "Where are your clothes?" she had asked.

"In the closet," he said.

There was silence for a moment, then she stepped out into the hall, wearing one of her many business suits. Today must be a work day — Barbara, as an independent event coordinator, made her own schedule. "Are the rest of them in the laundry?" she asked.

"Only a few," he said. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

Barbara sighed and walked over to kiss him on the cheek. "Will darling," she said, "there's nothing wrong with your clothes, but your old uniforms, three pairs of blue jeans, and a week's worth of Oxford shirts do not a wardrobe make. This weekend we are going shopping."

"I have the suit," he protested.

"All right," she said, smiling, "you have one suit. We're still going shopping."

"I like that suit," he said plaintively.

"Then we'll get you another one like it," she said, and shoved him gently towards the door, steering him around Archie, who was lying in the hall like a speed bump and being a general hazard to foot traffic. "Go on. You'll be late to work."

Will knew Barbara well enough to know that she got what she wanted. He sighed and resigned himself to the shopping trip.

Shopping had always been a straightforward affair for Will, what little of it he did. His uniform had never led him wrong yet, and so white shirt, grey tie and navy jacket it was. As a result he could usually find what he needed in about five minutes.

Now, however, he was surrounded by shirts and ties of all colours, and someone was talking about suit fittings and adjustments and different sorts of trousers, and he really would never have suspected that clothes could ever be this complicated. 

Barbara watched in gentle amusement as her husband grappled with the idea of coloured ties and suits that were not navy blue. He had made straight for the white shirts and grey ties when he walked into the store, and she had gently redirected him more than once as he persistently selected the plainest items of clothing in any given section. She had, by dint of patient persuasion, reconciled him to two shirts in dove grey, three in varying shades of blue, and one in very soft butter yellow. Now they were looking at ties, and she was trying at least to get him to choose a pattern over a solid colour. 

They walked out of the store with a respectable selection of clothing, all of it in some subtle aspect different from the rigid uniformity that Will's wardrobe had hitherto displayed, and, Barbara's great triumph, a rich burgundy tie. She tucked her hand into Will's elbow, smiling, and watched his baffled expression melt into an answering smile. "I still don't know what was wrong with the clothes I had," he said, shaking his head slightly.

"Absolutely nothing, except that they all look the same."

Will's expression told her that he had no idea why this was a problem, but he pressed the issue no further. 

He did, however, burst out laughing when they returned to the house to find that Horatio had exercised his talent of opening closed doors to deliberately leave grey cat hair on every single white shirt that remained in Will's half of the closet. Muddy footprints informed them that Archie had enthusiastically helped once the door was opened. Will, who had sat down on the bed to laugh better after seeing the contents of his closet, recovered himself enough to gasp, "The cat clearly agrees with you about my clothes, dear," before dissolving into peals of laughter again.

Barbara could not help joining him, which nearly proved to be her literal downfall when Horatio came to wind himself proudly around her ankles and demand her approval for his clever scheme. "Now do you believe me?" she asked once she had extricated herself from the cat, sitting down next to Will, who had at last gotten his laughter under control.

"Well," he said with dancing eyes, "Horatio did introduce me to you. I think I can trust his judgement."

"Oh, I see," she retorted, "if the _cat_ agrees with me I must be right."

Wide, innocent blue eyes looked into hers and she melted. "Only because the cat has proven his excellent instincts by decreeing that I ought to get to know you."

"Mr. Bush," she said, leaning over to kiss him, "you are an incorrigible man."

"Mrs. Bush," he said a little breathlessly after they parted, "you love me for it."

"Yes. Yes, I do. Now let me go and put the laundry on, or you'll be wearing those shirts that are all over cat hair for the rest of the week."

"Hang the laundry," he said, and pulled her in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's over, my first-ever romance fic. I would say probably last-ever too, but then the muse would drop another one on my head just to prove me wrong, so I won't say it.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed!


End file.
